George Ritchie's
Near-Death Experience

In 1943, at the age
of 20, Dr. George G. Ritchie, Jr., M.D.,
(September,
25, 1923 – October 29, 2007)
was a private in
the Army stationed in Texas awaiting a transfer
to Richmond to study medicine at the Medical
College of Virginia to become a doctor for the
military. However, he got sick with pneumonia
and died. The Army physician in charge stated
in a notarized statement that the medical officer
summoned detected "no evidence of respiration
or cardiac impulse" and declared Ritchie dead.
Ritchie had left his body in a near-death experience
wandering around the hospital ward unaware he
was dead. He found it strange no one could see
him. He returned to his room and recognized
his lifeless body, which had been covered with
a sheet, by his fraternity ring. The room then
became bright and Ritchie found himself in the
presence of Jesus who then guided him through
several realms of the afterlife before being
told to return to his body. As the ward was
preparing Ritchie's body for the morgue, he
thought he detected movement in Ritchie's chest
and called for a medical officer who provided
a shot of adrenaline to the patient's heart
causing him to breathe and his heart to beat.
Ritchie then returned to life with one of the
most important and profound NDEs every documented.
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Table
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1.
Verified Evidence of George Ritchie's Out-of-Body
Experience |
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A major feature of
Dr. George Ritchie's NDE was his extensive out-of-body
experience at the beginning of his NDE. His
observations have enormous implications because
they have been verified by a third-party. NDE
expert Robert Mays (www.selfconsciousmind.com)
has investigated and verified the details of
Ritchie's out-of-body observations. While out
of his body, Ritchie traveled to a distant location
(523 miles away) and saw details of an unfamiliar
area very accurately. What is most striking
is that the location of the cafe that Ritchie
saw, from the likely station hospital door,
appears to be exactly due east, and the location
of the blinking caution lights Ritchie saw are
also at this precise latitude. Indeed, the maximum
deviation from the hospital to Vicksburg could
have been only 0.6 seconds of arc, or 2900 feet
over 523 miles of travel. The fact that three
key aspects of Ritchie's account have likely
correlates at the exact same latitude, occurring
at widely spaced intervals, and that Ritchie
reports having traveled east strongly suggest
that his "flight" was an objective albeit unusual
event. Much more evidence about Robert Mays'
investigation can be read on this web page:
www.selfconsciousmind.com/ritchie/
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2.
George Ritchie's NDE Visions of the Future |
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Ritchie's NDE occurred
in 1943 when he was shown
visions of Earth's
future.
Jesus informed him he had 45 years to accomplish
his mission in life:
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"It is left
to humanity which direction they shall
choose. I came to this planet to show
you, through the life I led, how to
love. Without our Father you can do
nothing, neither could I. I showed you
this. You have 45 years." - Jesus'
words to George Ritchie
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George Ritchie's
book,
Return From Tomorrow, which
describes his near-death experience, was
published in 1985. This was approximately 42
years after his experience. Since Jesus told
him that he had 45 years, and it took 42
years until Ritchie's book was published, it
may be assumed that Jesus meant for Ritchie
to publish his testimony within 45 years.
Ritchie saw increasing
natural disasters on Earth (hurricanes, floods,
earthquakes, volcanoes); families splitting
and governments are breaking apart because of
people thinking only of themselves; and armies
marching on the U.S. from the south. He also
saw explosions occurring all over the world
of a magnitude beyond our capacity to imagine.
He was told that if they continued, human life
as we have known it will not exist.
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3.
The Profound Aftereffects of George Ritchie's
NDE |
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After Ritchie had his
NDE in 1943, he had no idea what he was supposed
to accomplish within the 45 years Jesus gave
him ending in 1988. In the late 1960s, during
his post-graduate studies and residency in psychiatry
at the
University of Virginia, his NDE testimony
attracted the attention of
Raymond Moody, MD (www.lifeafterlife.com)
Ritchie's testimony was the first contact of
Moody's investigation into over 150 cases of
NDEs resulting in Moody's publishing of his
study in the ground-breaking book,
Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon
- Survival of Bodily Death. Because of the
overwhelming success and popularity of his study
and book, Moody is considered to be "the father
of the near-death experience."
Ritchie's NDE is in
a class of its own. You will find his experience
to be one of the most profound NDEs ever documented. His
NDE is also one of the most important cases
of "NDE
veridical perception" which are NDE
out-of-body observations later verified
by third-parties. During his NDE, Ritchie traveled
out of his body for a distance of thousands
of miles where he observed detailed events later
verified to be true. Visit the website of
NDE expert Robert Mays (www.selfconsciousmind.com)
who verified the veridical evidence of Ritchie's
NDE.
In 1978, ten years before the allotted
45 years given to him by Jesus, Ritchie published
his first book about his NDE,
Return from Tomorrow (1978,
2007) co-authored by
Elizabeth Sherrill (www.elizabethsherrill.com).
Ritchie's book became so popular
it has been translated into nine languages.
In it he tells of his out-of-body experience
and
his meeting with
Jesus Christ
his travel through
different dimensions of time and space
with Christ; and
his experience in
heaven. Ritchie authored two more
books about his NDE: his second book,
My Life After Dying: Becoming Alive To Universal
Love (1991), and his third
and final book,
Ordered to Return: My Life After Dying
(1998), was co-authored by the
famous NDE and reincarnation studies expert,
Dr. Ian Stevenson (also see
his Wikipedia page).
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4. More Information
about Dr. George Ritchie |
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Ritchie's NDE initially
delayed his medical education and he graduated
from the Medical College of Virginia in 1950
after the war, operating a successful career
in private practice in Richmond until 1964.
He did his residency in psychiatry at the
University of Virginia from 1964 through
1967, winning the
William James Research Award for Research in
Psychiatry. In 1967 he began a successful
private psychiatry practice in Charlottesville,
Virginia, for 16 years. In 1983 he moved to
Anniston, Alabama, to serve as head of the Department
of Psychiatry at the
Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center
before returning to Richmond three years later
to oversee the
Richmond-Rope Harbor Alcoholic Hospital.
He also held positions as chairman of the
Department of Psychiatry of Towers Hospital
and president of the
Richmond Academy of General Practice. He
helped found the
David C. Wilson Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital
in Charlottesville, Virginia. He continued his
private practice until retirement in 1992.
But more than anything,
Ritchie was especially proud of his work with
youth. He was involved with Scouting for 22
years from 1935-1957. Ritchie was founder and
president of the
Universal Youth Corps, Inc. for almost 20
years. The Universal Youth Corps (UYC) is an
organization encouraging young men and women
to follow Christ offering medical service without
pay to the poor and reached out with a helping
hand through charities. The UYC was the inspiration
for
President Kennedy to establish the Peace Corps.
In 1972, one of Ritchie's UYC meetings,
a miraculous healing occurred when Ritchie
asked one of the boys to offer a prayer. Ritchie
reminded them of the Bible verse where Christ
says, “Again, truly I tell you that if two of
you on Earth agree about anything they ask for,
it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
For where two or three gather in my name, there
am I with them.” (Matthew
18:19-20). One of the boys asked God to
heal the horse of his friend - referring to
a young girl whose horse was dying from an infection
so severe the veterinarian advised the family
to "put the horse down." Ritchie then told the
girl's father, who was also attending the meeting,
that the Lord had spoken to him while the boy
was praying, saying, "If you will give thanks
for the horse's healing now, he will be well
in two weeks." The girl's father did what Ritchie
said; but on the thirteenth night after the
meeting, the horse was no better. But on the
next morning, sometime during the night, the
horse was completely healed. Even the incision
was gone. The miraculous healing had occurred
just as Ritchie said God promised.
Ritchie was also
a Sunday School teacher for many years and was
a charter member and elder in the
Tuckahoe Presbyterian Church. He was also
a member of the
United Methodist Church and the
Baptist Church. He is best known for his
NDE testimony which he shared all over the world,
attending speaking engagements throughout Europe,
the U.S. and Mexico.
Ritchie, an avid
fisherman who loved being out on the river,
died on October 29, 2007 at his home in Irvington,
Virginia, at the age of 84, following a long
and courageous battle with cancer. Ritchie is
survived by his wife of 60 years, Marguerite
Shell Ritchie, his daughter and son, granddaughters,
and great grandchildren.
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5.
A Brief Summary of George Ritchie's NDE |
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The following is a
brief summary of Dr. George Ritchie's near-death
experience. You can read his entire NDE testimony
in his book,
Return From Tomorrow.
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a.
His Out-of-Body Experience and Life Review with
Jesus |
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The following is the
testimony of
George Ritchie's OBE: George Ritchie dies
of pneumonia in a Texas Army hospital and leaves
his body unaware he is dead. He wanders around
the hospital ward and wonders why people cannot
see or hear him. Wanting eagerly to travel to
Richmond, Virginia, to finish college, the thought
instantly sends him flying through the door
of the hospital and into the air - traveling
thousands of miles toward Richmond. He is bewildered
about these sudden supernatural powers of flight
and transparency he has attained. He then arrives
at a city with a bar and discovers the people
there cannot see or hear him either. He also
has no solidness there either. He flies back
to the Army hospital where he sees his lifeless
body in the morgue and realizes he is dead..
Suddenly, a being of
tremendous light and love appeared before him.
Ritchie realizes this light is like "a million
welders' lamps all blazing at once." Human eyes
would be destroyed in a second if they saw it.
The being tells Ritchie to stand up. Ritchie
is astonished to learn he is standing before
Jesus Christ. More than anything emanating from
Jesus was the unbelievable amount of unconditional
love shining from him - a love that knew everything
about Ritchie and loved him just the same. Simultaneously,
as Jesus appeared to him, Ritchie watches his
entire life displayed before him. Jesus asks
him, "What have you done with your life?" Ritchie
tries to come up with several examples but realizes
he has fallen short. Ritchie eventually realizes
Jesus is not judging him at all; but rather,
Ritchie was judging himself. And the question
"What have you done with your life?" had more
to do with "How much unconditional love have
you given others."
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b.
His Guided Tour of the Earthbound Realm with
Jesus |
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The following is the
testimony of
George Ritchie's tour of the Earthbound
Realm: Then Jesus begins to
take Ritchie on a journey through various realms
of the afterlife. They fly toward a large city
on Earth where they notice a group of assembly-line
workers at work. They witnesses the spirit of
a woman trying desperately to grab a cigarette
from the workers who were oblivious to her presence.
This woman had died severely addicted to cigarettes
and was now cut off from the one thing she desperately
desired most.
Ritchie realizes how
the spirits in these realms immediately know
the thoughts of other spirits around them. This
is the reason they tend to group together with
other spirits. It is too threatening to be around
others who knew and disagreed with their thoughts.
Jesus leads Ritchie
to a house somewhere on Earth where he is shown
the spirit of a young man following his living
family members around and begging them for forgiveness.
But the family members are completely unaware
of his presence. Jesus tells Ritchie the young
man committed suicide and is "chained to every
consequence of his act."
They then traveled to
a bar somewhere on Earth which was filled with
sailors drinking heavily. Spirits surrounded
the sailors as they tried desperately, and in
vain, to grasp the shot glasses to get a drink.
Other spirits tried to control the sailors'
alcoholic behavior. Ritchie learns these are
the spirits of people who died still having
a severe alcoholic addiction which went beyond
the physical. He is bewildered as he observes
one of the sailors passing out causing the sailor's
protective aura surrounding him to crack open.
When it does, it allows a spirit to scramble
into the sailor's unconscious body. This scene
was repeated over and over.
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c.
His Experience of the "Receiving Station" |
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Jesus then takes
Ritchie to another realm and is shown a kind
of "receiving
station"
where spirits would arrive in a deep hypnotic
sleep because of a particular religious belief
they held to be true. Here there were "angels"
trying to arouse them and help them realize,
"God is truly a God of the living and that they
did not have to lie around sleeping until Gabriel
or someone came along blowing on a horn." These
are the spirits of people who believe they must
sleep in their grave until the second coming
of Christ (i.e.,
soul sleep.)
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d. His Description
of the Horrors of Hell |
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They were still somewhere
on the surface of the Earth; but no living person
or beings of light could be seen. Before them
was a plain jammed with hordes of spirits who
are the most miserable and angriest beings he
has ever seen. Many were engaged in hand-to-hand
combat with no weapons - trying in vain to hurt
and kill those who didn't agree with them. A
lot of verbal abuse could be heard between them
as their thoughts could be heard by everyone
around them the moment they are thought. Ritchie
is horrified as he wonders what living in such
a realm would be like - a place where you cannot
hide from who you really are. These spirits
were locked into destructive thought-patterns,
rage and uncontrollable lust. Some were trying
in vain to get sexual gratification from each
other. The wailing coming from the hordes of
unsatisfied spirits was tremendous. Other spirits
were in despair saying things such as, "I always
knew!" and "Didn't I warn you!" Ritchie realizes
this place is truly
hell.
Their obsessive thoughts and emotions extended
beyond the physical realm and into the spiritual
realm where they cannot be satisfied. Yet there
was nothing preventing any of the poor spirits
in these realms from leaving. There was no condemnation
coming from Jesus either - only compassion for
these miserable spirits. Ritchie realizes Jesus
hadn't abandoned any of them here. Instead they
fled from the light to escape from having the
darkness of their heart from being revealed.
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e.
His Observations of the Temple of Wisdom |
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The following is
the testimony of
George Ritchie's Temple of Wisdom and
Heavenly City Experience: They then travel
to a completely different realm where some kind
of enormous university is located. Spirits dressed
as monks busily and happily engaged in some
form of artistic behavior or research. An
enormous library
exists here where all the important books of
the universe are assembled. Ritchie asks Jesus
if this is heaven. These are the spirits of
people who grew beyond selfish desires while
on Earth; but, like the spirits in hell, these
spirits cannot see Jesus either.
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f.
His Vision of the Heavenly City |
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Ritchie is then taken
into outer space toward a distant city made
of brilliant light - similar in description
to the heavenly city in the
Book of Revelation
(see also
Revelation 21:10-27.)
This is the place where people go who have become
like Jesus while on Earth - a place where love
is the dominant focus of life. This is heaven
he realizes; but he is not allowed to enter
it. Instead, Jesus shows him the future of Earth
and is told to return to his physical body.
At this point, Ritchie is revived from death.
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6.
A Commentary by George Ritchie |
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The following commentary
is an excerpt from George Ritchie's book,
My Life After Dying:
Becoming Alive to Universal Love.
Across the ages,
as he did in the Garden of Eden, God still calls
out to man, "Where are you, Adam?
Man, with the help
of the dogmas of Western Christianity, has lost
his way, and sees himself totally separated
from God because Western Christianity through
the Roman Catholic Church stressed
fallen man,
with Jesus dying for our sins on the cross.
The churches have not explained
our potential as
gods (our
potential of becoming a sons of God like Jesus)
with our God-given creative power, and how necessary
it is for us to be under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit of God when we use this power. Quoting
Psalms 82:6,
Jesus asked:
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"Is it not written in your law, I
said, you are gods?" (from
John 10:30-39)
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St. Irenaeus, a famous early Christian leader
stated that
God became a human being in order that human
beings might become God. I would change
what he said only to the degree that I would
say that Jesus showed us the God that God, our
Father created us to be.
Instead the churches
lead us to believe that
the church was given the authority to decide
who was going to heaven, and that those
who didn't join their particular denomination
were going to hell. This is
incongruous with the teachings of Jesus,
the Christ, who told us the tale of
the prodigal son not only to help us understand
the love and forgiveness of God but to help
us understand that the prodigal son is the cosmic
tale of each and every human being. We have
all forgotten that
we are sons and daughters of the most high God;
that our spiritual side, the soul of man, needs
to return to have total fellowship with the
Father. To do this we have to come to ourselves
and realize that in this human realm of existence,
our human, selfish side has led us down the
road of materialism and of living only for ourselves,
which caused us to turn away from our Father
and our divine destiny and forget who we are.
It caused our spiritual death.
Jesus went on the
cross to show us that we must die to this human
egotistical
side
in order to let the soul of man, which has carried
the knowledge of who it is and from whence it
came, come to life and into control.
This is our ultimate
destiny, to reach out and begin to communicate
with the Christ, so that he can lead us back
to being alive (into that
perfect union with our Father) and let him
pass his love and thinking through us to one
another.
We must come to know the living resurrected
Christ within us, and depend on passing
his love to one another and to God, because
our human love isn't enough. When we recognize
this truth, then, like the prodigal son Jesus
told about, we will have come to ourselves;
that is,
we will come alive, and will decide to go
home, for we will know that even being a servant
in our Father's household is better than being
dead spiritually, the way we have been living.
Then, with the Christ,
the Holy Spirit and our Father - all of us joined
together - we shall be helping to create a universe
and no longer a diverse.
This is what I believe
Jesus meant when he said:
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Christ showed us that
he had to go through the death of his physical
self
in order for the resurrection of his spiritual
self to take place. I think that his death
on the cross also symbolized that we must realize
we are dead before we can be raised up by the
resurrected Christ within us. I find it hard
to believe that in our present state of spiritual
death
we can conquer our self-centered lower physical
nature without going through the death and surrender
of our will as did Jesus on the cross. I
can say from the risen Christ's having conducted
me through four realms of life after death,
that in the highest realm, he showed me beings
who had followed his teachings and were now
resurrected into spiritual beings who were
like him when it came to the love, light and
life they put forth.
I believe Jesus did
not incarnate just to die for our sins, but
that he also lived and died to show all of humanity,
regardless of race, creed, or color,
how much God our Father loved us. He expects
us to do the same thing. When we come to realize
this, then he will truly be lifted up for
we shall be keeping the great commandment:
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"Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, with all your mind and with
all your strength. Love your neighbor
as yourself." - Jesus,
Luke 10:25-28
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Our destiny is not
only to come to know and rise above our human
side, but, by
following his example of dying to self,
to come to know and activate, or bring to life,
our spiritual side, which he showed was in every
man, woman, and child. He showed us how to die
to self and how to rise from the dead and ascend
into our Higher Self, life.
I'm not saying that
we have to make a sacrificial death on a cross
as Jesus did. I am saying that we have to reach
the place where
we are willing to face the death of our self-centered
nature so that our higher spiritual nature can
gain control. I believe that being willing
to follow such a total surrender to God's will,
will bring about a resurrection and ascension
of the transformed self, which can change
a world into a
heaven on earth. He started this transformation
first in himself to show what can happen to
all who would follow him. It changed him and
all who followed him because he surrendered
his will to
God our Father, who, he showed, is pure LOVE.
Our destiny is to do the same thing in order
to survive and change our world.
His commission wasn't just to teach and show
us how to reach the highest realm, heaven, but
rather how to create heaven on earth.
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Return From Tomorrow
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by George
Ritchie
and
Elizabeth
Sherrill
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At the age of 20, George
Ritchie died in an Army hospital. Nine
minutes later, he returned to life.
What happened to him during those minutes
was so compelling that it changed his
life forever. Ritchie tells of his transforming
encounter with the Son of God, who led
him to encounters with other non-physical
beings at the very doorway of eternity.
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My Life After Dying: Becoming Alive To Universal
Love
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by George Ritchie
and
Ian Stevenson
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In
this book, Ritchie briefly recalls his NDE
and what happened later including the real
miracles he has seen in his years as practice
as a physician and psychiatrist. What's
more, using plain, every-day examples of
life, he offers penetrating insights into
what is wrong with American life today -
and how it can be set right. What has happened
to him has changed many lives.
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Ordered to Return: My Life After
Dying
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by George Ritchie
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"George Ritchie's
gripping account of his near-death
experience and subsequent spiritual
transformation is the best such
book in print. Dr. Ritchie is the
finest man I've ever known, and
I urge everyone who is interested
in the extraordinary visions of
the dying to read Ordered to Return."
-
Raymond A. Moody,
PhD, MD,
author of
Life After Life
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The Near-Death Experience
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by Calvert Roszell
and George Ritchie
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There
are remarkably detailed parallels between
Ritchie, the NDE and the Austrian philosopher
Rudolf Steiner. The author begins with a
discussion of scientific principles dealing
with NDEs and a discussion Ritchie's testimony
in light of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science.
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The Place We Call Home: Exploring the Soul's
Existence after Death
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by Robert J.
Grant
and George Ritchie
M.D.
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At
some point everyone asks the question: What
happens when we die? Robert J. Grant, a
popular writer, lecturer, and researcher
in many areas of contemporary spirituality,
offers a dramatic and encouraging look at
the realms beyond physical death. This book
is filled with the personal stories of those
who have experienced the other side, either
through death, communications from those
who have died, or NDEs.
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I Stand All Amazed: Love and Healing from
Higher Realms
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by Elane Durham
and George Ritchie
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Elane
is a woman who has experienced an incredible
amount of pain throughout her life. It would
have been very easy for her to be vengeful
and full of bitterness. Instead she humbly
sought forgiveness, acceptance and direction
from God. Elane’s NDE completely changed
her life as she experienced God’s love and
healing.
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Related Books of Interest |
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Glimpses of Eternity: An Investigation Into
Shared Death Experiences
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by
Raymond Moody, MD
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In
this stunning sequel to Life After Life,
Dr. Moody provides compelling new evidence
that NDEs are not the mere biological products
of brains in the process of shutting down.
Here, he shares the eyewitness accounts
of those who have shared the experiences
of the dying: the "empathic death experiences"
that occur when those gathered at the bedsides
of the dying have their own visions of the
afterlife.
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Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its
Wonder
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by
Emanuel Swedenborg
and Donald Rose
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What
happens to us after we die? What is heaven
like? How do angels live? In his classic
work Heaven and Hell, Swedish visionary
Emanuel Swedenborg gives readers a detailed
road map to the afterlife, describing the
process that our soul goes through after
death, the nature of heaven and hell, angels
and demons, all in meticulous detail. Afterlife
is an abridged version of Heaven and Hell,
with passages specially chosen to highlight
the essence of Swedenborg's work.
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Ask George Anderson: What Souls in the Hereafter
Can Teach Us About Life
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by
George Anderson
and Andrew Barone
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For
nearly 50 years and more than 35,000 sessions,
George Anderson, widely considered the world’s
greatest living medium, has listened to
those who have crossed to the other side.
He has bridged the worlds of the here and
the hereafter by communicating messages
of hope from loved ones who have passed
on, in order to help bring peace to those
who continue on Earth.
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